Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 5 Day 8
“The deed is the test, the trial, the risk. What we perform may seem slight, but the aftermath is immense. An individual’s misdeed can be the beginning a nation’s disaster. The sun goes down, but the deeds go on. Darkness is over all we have done.” (Thunder in the Soul pg.82)
These words were published over 50 years ago, in the shadow of the Holocaust, in the sunlight of what was happening in America and in the world, and they are as relevant for We the People today as they were then. AND, we the people seem to incapable, unwilling, too intractable to learn, to change, to improve on what was done before us. How PATHETIC, SAD, CRIMINAL! It is easy to point the finger at Trump, Lutnick, Miller, et al, at Bibi, Ben G’Vir, Putin, et al, the difficulty, the demand of these words as I hear it today, is to ask the question our grandchildren will ask: what did you do in ‘the war’ grandpa, grandma? We are in a war, make no mistake about it, the war is for the soul of each of us as individuals, for the country we live in, for the world we GET to inhabit.
“The deed is the test, the trial, the risk” is so pregnant with meaning, I am trembling, shuddering, and in wonder over how to understand the totality of what is being said here. God doesn’t “test” us as I hear, listen and understand the Bible, the Voice that calls out each day from Mount Sinai, the inner voice of my soul. Rather, “the test” is an internal and societal one: are We the People, as individual human beings, going to choose the moral “deeds” to perform in any and every given situation? Are we the people as small self-centered individuals going to choose the immoral “deeds” so we ‘can get ours, get ahead’? This is a “test” We the People take every day, many times a day, and most of us are willfully blind to this “test”, we go along with the societal call for ‘likes’, for wealth, for power, for idolatry. In doing the moral “deed”, the “deed” our soul is calling us to, we can understand how doing the next right thing, enhances our inner life, gives us passion and purpose to move forward, and, quite often, enhances our ability to make a living.
What causes me and many of We the People trembling awe is “the trial”. Each day, each year, we are called to the Heavenly Court, the Holy Tribunal to respond to the charges, the indictment our “deeds” have carved onto the stone tablets of the day, the year. This is not ‘God’s indictment’, it is ours and only we, as an individual and as a community, can stand up and respond to the charges. I tremble at the reading of this indictment each year, each day because I know better, I am better than my worst action, I am not the piece of shit, the lunatic, the chaos maker I am accused of being. I also know that my ways upset people, are at times chaotic, and I know the misdeeds I make better than anyone else because I have to live with them. Standing trial before the Heavenly Tribunal is not as scary as people like to think. God does not want to punish us! Both Jeremiah and Hosea speak of God’s love for us, God’s desire to “heal our backsliding”, to take us back in love even though we have been unfaithful and whored ourselves. My experience with the Heavenly Tribunal has been one of relief, one of being taught, one of being forgiven, one of being loved by an unending love and I do the best I can to pass that along. Every time someone has come to me to make an amend, to do a T’Shuvah, I accept and hug them, I want to help them and I want to stay connected to them. This is the example of the Heavenly Tribunal and, please God, the rest of We the People can live into this example. “The trial” is awesome, it can make one tremble, and it is freedom, growth, connection and joy!
“The risk” of course is societal, not spiritual. It is a “risk” to do the next right “deed” because society laughs at us, society tells us “get mine” rather than the spiritual message of the Bible, of Jesus-“how can I help?” I am thinking about the Bridge Club where the director of the games, whenever called over to a table, asks; “How can I help”, not what’s the problem, why are you bothering me-“How can I help”! There is always a “risk” in doing the next right thing, someone might take advantage of you, someone might use you to take advantage of another human being, someone may get ahead on your back-stepping on you to ‘get to the top’. Society laughs at people like the prophets because they are willing to “risk” their very lives to deliver a message from the Voice on Sinai. Yet, without taking this “risk”, there is no advancement in medicine, in morality, in spirituality, in kindness, in love, in joy, in caring for the widow, the orphan, the poor, the needy, the stranger. And since we all have these archetypes within us, not taking this “risk” impoverishes our internal life and our external one as well.
ACTION STEPS:
Do a daily journal of the moral and immoral “Deeds” you perform
Do a daily writing on the outcome of the “trial” for yesterday’s “deeds”
Do a daily writing on how often you take the “risk” to better self and your corner of the world
GOD BLESS and STAY SAFE, Rabbi Mar